The Nation

Armand Hammer, chairman of the President's Cancer Panel, decried as a "tragic mistake" cuts made in the Reagan Administration budget for research into a cure for the disease. "It would just put back all the progress we're making. It would turn the clock back," said Hammer, the chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp. The industrialist, in Philadelphia for a meeting of the panel, said that President Reagan's proposed budget would slash 1,500 grants, including about 150--or $40 million to $50 million--for the National Cancer Institute.